Please join us on Monday, 11/13/2023, at 5pm in Swift 201 for a presentation by:

Seth Joachim

MA, University of Chicago Divinity School

“Ethical Icarus? Levinas Through the Eyes of Teachers”

At first glance, Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics may appear superficially incoherent with human nature. Even as an idealized account of how humans ought to act, the great demand of the Other in Levinas’s ethics would seem to suggest that it would be impossible to ignore the suffering of others. And yet, everyday anecdotal experience demonstrates the ease with which people walk past the basic call to help from others on the street. Another reading might suggest that the way gazes are averted from those in pain suggests just how earnestly individuals attempt to avoid the exact relation to which Levinas’s ethics refers. In contrast, teachers are an ideal case to demonstrate how certain individuals choose to commit the support of others. Through teachers as a test case, this paper asserts the continued relevance of Levinas’s ethics while also suggesting the role of rational choices to impact one’s engagement with others.

The paper, to be read in advance of the workshop, can be found here: Joachim (password: levinas)

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:

ROMBERCH MEMORY, 1553. Woodcut illustrating the method of loci from Johannes Romberch’s ‘Congestorium Artificiose Memoriae,’ Venice, 1553.

Rachel Brooke Katz

PhD Student, History of Judaism, The University of Chicago Divinity School

Shema as Memory Palace:
A Medieval Hebrew Ars Memorativa

Respondent: Aslan Cohen Mizrahi (PhD Student, The University of Chicago Divinity School)

Monday, May 22, 2023 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm Central

on Zoom

Rachel’s paper, to be read in advance of the session, is available for download below. The password to the document and the information for joining the Zoom session will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated paper: Katz

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:

Unemployed seamstress at her sewing machine, Bialystok, Poland, 1926. Photograph by Alter Kacyzne. (RG 1270, YIVO Archives)

Elena Hoffenberg

PhD Student, History, University of Chicago

Making a Living and Making a Life:
The Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars

Monday, May 15, 2023 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm

Swift Hall 200

Elena’s paper, to be read in advance of the session, is available for download below. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated paper: Hoffenberg-JStW-Prospectus (bibliography)

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop and Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Reception Workshop for:

The Book of Qohelet: a Conversation

with

Simeon Chavel (Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible, University Chicago Divinity School)

and

 James Robinson (Dean and Professor of History of Judaism, Islamic Studies, and the History of Religions, University of Chicago Divinity School)

Monday, May 8, 2023 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm

Swift Hall 208

In advance of the session, participants are invited to read Qohelet Chapter 1-3 and 11-12.

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:

Cover of Hortulus 37 1959. Booklooker.de

Na’ama Rokem

Associate Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature & Comparative Literature, University of Chicago

Hortulus 37, 1959: Translation, Self Translation, and Collaborative Translation in an Anthology of New Poetry from Israel

Respondent: Rachel Galvin (Associate Professor, English, University of Chicago)

Tuesday, May 2, 2023 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm

Swift Hall 201

Na’ama’s paper, to be read in advance of the session, is available for download below. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated paper: Rokem

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:

Portrait of Hilde Bruch with her book Eating Disorders. McGovern Historical Center, MS 007 Hilde Bruch, MD papers.

Alice Weinreb

Associate Professor, Department of History, Loyola University Chicago

“The Age of Anorexia and the Weight of the Holocaust”

Respondent: Madeline Adams (PhD Candidate, History, University of Chicago)

Monday, April 24, 2023 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm

Swift Hall 200

Alice’s paper, to be read in advance of the session, is available for download below. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated paper: Weinreb

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies for a presentation by:

“Orange grove” [between 1907 and 1940]; taken either by the American Colony Photo Department or its successor, the Matson Photo Service. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

Mostafa Hussein

(Assistant Professor of Jewish-Muslim Relations, University of Michigan)

“Torn between Two Worlds: Palestine Landscape between Hebrew and Arabic”

Respondent: Annie Greene (CMES Research Associate, University of Chicago)

Monday, March 27, 2023 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm

Swift Hall 208

There will be a reception to follow after sundown in the Swift Hall Common Room 

Mostafa’s paper, to be read in advance of the session, is available for download below. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated paper: Hussein

Jewish Studies Workshop, Spring 2023

Meetings will be held from 5:00 – 6:30 pm CST on Mondays in Swift Hall 200, unless indicated otherwise. 

Advanced copies of papers (and Zoom links, where applicable) will be pre-circulated via the Jewish Studies Workshop listserv and made available on our website. If you would like to be added to our listserv, you can do so here, or email us at skraver@uchicago.edu or ehoffenberg@uchicago.edu.

Please note that this schedule was last updated on March 8, 2023.

March 27, Swift 208

Torn between Two Worlds: Palestine Landscape between Hebrew and Arabic

Mostafa Hussein (Assistant Professor of Jewish-Muslim Relations, University of Michigan)

With a reception to follow in the Swift Hall Common Room

Co-Sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies

Tuesday, April 4, 4:30 pm in the Social Sciences Tea Room

How should we write a history of prisoner society? Anna Hájková’s new history of Theresienstadt ghetto

Anna Hájková (Associate Professor of History, University of Warwick)

Held jointly with the Transnational Approaches to Modern Europe Workshop

Co-Sponsored by the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies

April 24

Jewish Anorexia and the Weight of the Holocaust

Alice Weinreb (Associate Professor of History, Loyola University, Chicago)

Respondent: Madeline Adams (PhD Candidate, History, University of Chicago)

Tuesday, May 2 in Swift 201

Hortulus 37, 1959: Translation and Self Translation in an Anthology of New Poetry from Israel 

Na’ama Rokem (Associate Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature & Comparative Literature, University of Chicago)

Respondent: Rachel Galvin (Associate Professor of English, University of Chicago)

May 8

Conversation about Qohelet

James Robinson (Dean of the Divinity School, University of Chicago) and Simeon Chavel (Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Chicago)

Held jointly with the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Reception Workshop

May 15

Making a Living and Making a Life: Polish Jewry Confronts Economic Modernity

Elena Hoffenberg (PhD Student, History, University of Chicago)

May 22 via Zoom

Shema as memory palace? A medieval Hebrew ars memorativa 

Rachel Katz (PhD Candidate, Divinity School, University of Chicago)

Respondent: Aslan Cohen Mizrahi (PhD Candidate, Divinity School, University of Chicago)